Arctic Monkeys say new album is 'very different'

Arctic Monkeys have lifted the lid on their "very different" new album.

The follow-up to their massively successful 2006 debut ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ is due in the spring, and frontman Alex Turner has told NME.COM the songs will reflect on their amazing experiences since things took off for them.

He said: “We started off getting this practice room where we tried to write. There were lots of bits left over and we just tried to sort it all out, get organised a bit. The songs are very different from last time. For the first album we locked ourselves away in the middle of nowhere, whereas this time we’ve been out in the Smoke, going out and stuff. I think that’s maybe reflected in the songs a little bit.

“In terms of sound, a lot of the ones we’ve done so far are a bit full-on. A bit like ‘From The Ritz To The Rubble’, ‘The View From The Afternoon’, that sort of thing. We’ve tried to get proper rhythms – it seems like in rock there’s a lot of boring rhythms. We’ve tried to experiment – that’s a bit of a dangerous word, but we’ve tried to push on with that. We’d be in soundchecks and it would be, ‘Fucking hell, what’s that?’ so we’d record it on a phone. We’ve ended up with breaks almost. I’ve always been into beats, we were into that before we were into The Strokes.

“I don’t think the new stuff will shock people – I don’t think anybody expects us to do the same as the first album but with strings. That’s what bands do a lot of the time, isn’t it? We’re not old enough to do that yet!”

For more on the Monkeys’ new material, get this week’s NME, on sale at all good newsagents now.